Six flags is now charging you to print tickets at home.

I don't get why six flags would hire a company to handle the ticket sales when they could do it themselfs.

How hard is it to do?

How do you know it is more cost efficient to do it "themselfs"?

RockDown said:
Seriously. Did I mention my 2009 Magic Mountain pass that works at all Six Flags parks was only $45?

But they advertised it as only costing you $40, RockDown. Dishonest is dishonest, no matter the price.

crazy horse said:
Ok now, this is just as bad as them charging you $12 to park your car.

Six Flags is now charging a $5 fee to print your own tickets at home. I really don't understand why we should have to pay to print our own tickets out at home, when it is cheaper for them to let us print our own tickets.

So now, I am using my printer ink and paper and I am charged to do so.

Great move six flags.

That's funny. They charge us for using our own ink and paper.

I may be wrong, but I thought there was always a fee. It just wasn't $5.

Another reason to not go to Six Flags.

kRaXLeRidAh said:
What is the big freaking deal?

The company is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy and they're trying to rake in a little bit of extra cash.

The big deal is that the consumer is printing tickets from home at their expense (printer, paper and ink/toner) and keeping the park from having to staff a ticket booth to service them, while simultaneously charging the consumer extra money. As Matt said, it's bad form. Make the discount less or tell some other kind of white lie, but don't make the consumer feel as though they're paying money to do Six Flags a favor or two. Do that, and I suddenly don't feel so bad about the company being on the verge of bankrupcy.

I've printed out tickets for 2 venues within the past year-- the PA Ren Faire and Sight & Sound theatre. I'm sure there was a third party involved in the transaction, but the price per ticket promised on the websites was the final price per ticket. No transaction or convenience fees.

Granted, there was no discount involved. Was there a fee figured in to pay the third party? Certainly. But I didn't pay any more by printing them at home than had I purchased at the gate/door. Surely, SF could handle this the same way. Sorry, but I don't see this as an act of "honesty" by SF that should be rewarded at $5 a clip.

To the "I'm doing them a favor" crowd - it costs the company to set-up, utilize and maintain a system for distributing tickets electronically online. Whether they do it in-house or go with a third-party there are costs involved. This isn't instead of a physical presence at the gate, it's in addition to it.

Again, all this outrage, but if they had just tied the costs in and not mentioned it, not a word would have been said. This will be as much of a non-issue in the big picture as every other change that caused outrage with SF since Red Zone took over. If history proves true again, then other parks will be doing this themselves in a few seasons.

All I've learned over the years with the SF stuff is that people want the wool pulled over their eyes. Too bad SF just doesn't learn this.

At $5 per order (and I think this is another 'enthusiast problem' in that I doubt most people buy just one ticket...who visits parks alone?) they should have just tied $1.50 into every ticket and then sent out press releases about how they don't charge anyone any service fees of any kind online and encouraged people to buy online for these 'outstanding deals' that are available.

Free drinks anyone?

Next thing to happen is that they'll start selling their tickets on Ticketmaster. And that's a place that should be taken down with their high "convenience" charges among other miscellaneous fees. Half the places I'd like to see, whether it be a concert or a sport event, I don't end up doing because of TM's high costs.

Very true, Gonch. There are costs to install and maintain a system that allows the online distribution of tickets, but why should the costs be so obvious? It cost Kings Island money to install and maintain Diamondback this season but KI isn't attaching a surcharge to each admission.

I'd rather be told a white lie. Don't tell me you're going to charge me for the convenience of printing my own ticket at home. The idea of shelling out a few bucks when I am using my own time, hardware and materials just doesn't sit that well with me. Bury the cost. I'm not naive enough to think it's free but somehow I'll be able to convince myself that I'm not being nickeled and dimed.

Lord Gonchar said:

Free drinks anyone?

That's a good point. Maybe Six Flags should advertise free soft drinks and set up self-serve soda fountains, then charge a $3.99 convenience fee per fillup. ;)

Free drinks with a service fee. I love it!

Ooh, maybe the cups could be embedded with a smart chip that automagically debits your account. SF is usually on the cutting edge like that.

Nice. :)

^^You can't use the word "automagically" - the Mouse has ears (and lawyers out the wazoo). ;)

Back to print-at-home: Theoretically, more people buying online does reduce the amount of staff time needed to dispense tickets at the gate. I remember (or I think I do) Paula saying that HW had considered staff-savings when doing the "free drinks" thing. Sure, you still need to refill ice and soda dispensers, but you save some labor costs involved with handling all those individuals when they seem to be perfectly capable of serving themselves. On the whole, yeah, I agree that more methods of purcahsing tix means more costs to the park....

edited for paragraph break... :)

But didn't The Mouse recently lay off some of those lawyers? Or did they just lay off the creative people in order to keep all their lawyers?

Lord Gonchar said:
If history proves true again, then other parks will be doing this themselves in a few seasons.

Well, that's the quickest one of my prophecies has ever come true! (Is it a prophecy if it already happened but you didn't know? ;) )

Just saw this on screamscape:

Some readers were also quick to point out that most of the various Cedar Fair parks are also charging their own fees for the same thing. (ie: Carowinds wants $2 to let you print your own E-Ticket, Cedar Point and Knott’s will take $3.) For those keeping score, Universal Orlando now also charges a $2.15 fee to print your own ticket...

So there you have it. Not an SF-only phenominon and not out of line by industry standards.

^ I just love knee-jerk reactions to something that upon reflection, isn't all that surprising. There are so many 'hidden' fees on almost everything now, that it's refreshing to actually see what you're paying for.

There is a 'fee' now to pay my gas bill online. Yet another $5.00 fee to pay my electric bill by phone. All done by third party companies. Yet another case of slammimg Six Flags for something companies have been doing for years!

Lord Gonchar said:
At $5 per order (and I think this is another 'enthusiast problem' in that I doubt most people buy just one ticket...who visits parks alone?) they should have just tied $1.50 into every ticket and then sent out press releases about how they don't charge anyone any service fees of any kind online and encouraged people to buy online for these 'outstanding deals' that are available.

Come on, man. It's not a matter of whether or not people visit the park by themselves, it's a matter of whether or not they purchase their ticket individually. There's a difference.

While I grant you there are many families that attend the park, I want to say the number of people who purchase their ticket on their own and then meet up to attend the park together is probably larger than you give credit for here and definitely larger than just the enthusiast group.

I stand by what I said before in that the issue is less about the fee and its disclosure, and more about the incentivized discounting in order to use the service that then requires the fee. That's just silly.

It's not so silly that it will change behavior, though, in my opinion. So I agree that I don't think SF ticket sales will be impacted. People can still do the math and there is still a discount. Not to mention, they won't even realize the issue until after the sale is made in most cases.